Embodiments of the present inventive concept relate to data de-duplication technologies, and more particularly, to methods for operating a data storage device which is configured to perform a data de-duplication function, and to methods for operating a system including such a data storage device.
Data de-duplication is used in a variety of manners to improve a data transfer speed of a data storage device and to increase utilization of storage space of the data storage device.
Generally, for example, a fingerprint-based data de-duplication technology is used in a server system. The fingerprint-based data de-duplication technology is a technology that generates a short bit string representing a large data in a method of compressing data, searches for duplicated data duplicated with the data based on the generated fingerprint, and when the same data as the duplicated data are already present in a data storage device according to the search result, avoids storage and transfer of the duplicated data.
The fingerprint may be generated by using a hash key. However, when the fingerprint is generated, a device which generates the fingerprint may require a considerably large amount of operations, and may further require a considerably large storage space to store and manage the fingerprint.